Signature – Tokyo's Mandarin Oriental Hotel has three Michelin-starred restaurants, including French eatery Signature, pictured. All of its Japanese chefs and staff have lived and worked in France.

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Photos:Inside the world's culinary capital

It's all about the produce – In Tokyo, fruit and vegetables are treated with huge respect and can command eye-watering prices for single specimens. Restaurateurs and shop owners alike have exacting standards and aren't shy about returning anything that doesn't meet them.

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Photos:Inside the world's culinary capital

Sushi – Sushi's definitely the star of Tokyo's dining scene but there's so much more to the city's culinary landscape -- and we're not just talking Japanese. Many of Tokyo's Michelin-starred restaurants are European, including 50 French restaurants.

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Photos:Inside the world's culinary capital

Ramen – For a lot of Tokyoites, ramen is the epitome of cheap, fast food -- a simple bowl of noodles to be slurped down in a matter of minutes during lunchtime or after a long night out.

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Photos:Inside the world's culinary capital

Takazawa – At the opposite end of the price spectrum is Takazawa, a 10-seat restaurant owned by Tokyo chef Yoshiaki Takazawa. Each dish on the set menu tells a story with both unique techniques and unexpected tastes, making Takazawa's menu one of the most coveted in the world. In this dish, "Rock on the Seashore," Takazawa disguises bass with a black bread skin and fills it with potato puree to make it look like a stone.

Chef Hidetoki Sato, Ta Vie – Chef Hidetoki Sato worked at one of Tokyo's most renowned three-star restaurants, Ryugin, before opening its Hong Kong incarnation, where he quickly won two stars. He now helms French restaurant Ta Vie. "As one of many Japanese chefs, I know that we all share the same strong artistic spirit," he says. "We focus intensely on the quality and detail of what we do, in our case the food we serve."

World's best sushi? – Sushi chef Jiro Ono and son Yoshikazu Ono. Jiro, 89, is the first sushi chef in the world to receive three Michelin stars. He was featured in a 2011 documentary, "Jiro Dreams of Sushi," and last year welcomed President Barack Obama to his restaurant.

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Photos:Inside the world's culinary capital

Yoshiharu Kaji, Felix – Chef Yoshiharu Kaji of Hong Kong's Felix restaurant says the bar for perfection continues to rise. "Competition is strong in Tokyo, which makes all chefs work very hard to hone their cooking skills and think of new culinary concepts to grab people's attention," he says.

January 7, 1989 - Akihito becomes emperor after the death of Hirohito.

1993 - Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono issues a statement that accepts Japan's responsibility for recruiting comfort women before and during World War II and extends "its sincere apologies and remorse."

January 1995 - The 6.9 magnitude Kobe earthquake occurs, where 5,502 people were killed and 36,896 people were injured.

March 1995 - A religious cult spreads sarin, a nerve gas, in the Tokyo subway. Twelve people are killed and more than 5,000 are sickened.

2006 - The first defense ministry since World War II is approved by the parliament.

March 11, 2011 - A 9.1 magnitude earthquake takes place 231 miles northeast of Tokyo. The earthquake causes a tsunami with 30 ft. waves that damage several nuclear reactors in the area. The combined total of confirmed deaths and missing is more than 22,000 (nearly 20,000 deaths and 2,500 missing). (Source: Japan's Fire and Disaster Management Agency)

December 14, 2014 - In Japan's snap parliamentary elections, exit polls show Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Liberal Democratic Party winning in a landslide. The win gives Abe four more years to institute his policies aimed at reviving Japan's economy by flooding the market with cash, encouraging corporations to create more jobs and increasing government spending.

September 19, 2015 - Japan's upper chamber of Parliament approves controversial bills allowing the country's military to engage in overseas combat in limited circumstances -- a major shift after seven decades of pacifism. The 148-90 vote is the final hurdle for the measures, which will go into effect within roughly the next six months.